5.  The applicant was born in 1953 and lives in Wadowice Górne.
6.  The applicant is married with two children. Prior to his early retirement he had been employed for twenty-eight years and had paid social security contributions to the State.
7.  On 28 May 2001 the applicant filed an application with the Rzeszów Social Security Board (Zakład Ubezpieczeń Społecznych) to be granted the right to an early-retirement pension for persons raising children who, due to the seriousness of their health condition, required constant care, the so-called “EWK” pension.
8.  Along with his application for a pension, the applicant submitted, among other documents concerning his daughter’s health condition, a medical certificate issued by a specialist doctor on 24 May 2001. The certificate stated that his daughter M (born in 1990) had suffered from chronic asthma (przewlekła astma oskrzelowa) and chronic allergy sinusitis (całoroczny alergiczny niezyt nosa) and that she was in need of her parent’s constant care.
9.  On 16 July 2001 the Rzeszów Social Security Board (“the SSB”) issued a decision granting the applicant the right to an early‑retirement pension as of 1 May 2001 in the net amount of 880.99 Polish zlotys.
10.  The Social Security Board initially suspended the payment of the pension due to the fact that the applicant was still working on the date of the decision. On 31 July 2001 the applicant resigned from his full-time job as a driver at the road and bridge construction company (Przedsiębiorstwo Drogowo-Mostowe) in Dębica.
11.  Consequently, on 21 August 2001 the Rzeszów Social Security Board issued a new decision authorising the payment of the previously awarded retirement pension starting from 1 August 2001.
12.  On 27 August 2002 the Rzeszów Social Security Board asked the Main Social Security Board’s doctor (Główny Lekarz Orzecznik) to inform it whether the applicant’s daughter required the permanent care of a parent. On an unknown date the doctor stated that, on the basis of the medical documents, the child could not be considered as ever having required such care.
13.  On 4 September 2002 the Rzeszów Social Security Board issued simultaneously two decisions in respect of the applicant.
14.  By virtue of the first decision, the payment of the applicant’s pension was discontinued with immediate effect. By virtue of the other decision, the Board reopened the proceedings and revoked the initial decision granting a pension and eventually refused to award the applicant the right to an early‑retirement pension under the scheme provided for by the 1989 Ordinance.
15.  The applicant appealed against the respective decisions divesting him of the right to an early-retirement pension.
16.  On 28 November 2002 the Tarnobrzeg Regional Court (Sąd Okręgowy) ordered that the case be remitted to the Social Security Board and that the applicant’s child be examined by the Social Security Board’s doctor.
17.  On 31 March 2003 the Social Security Board’s doctor, who had examined the applicant’s child, stated that M suffered from asthma (astma oskrzelowa) and allergy sinusitis (alergiczny nieżyt nosa) but did not require the permanent care of a parent.
18.  On 25 February 2004 the Tarnobrzeg Regional Court dismissed the appeal. The Regional Court concluded on the basis of the evidence that the applicant’s child did not require her father’s permanent care, since her health condition did not significantly impair her bodily functions. The domestic court held that the applicant had been rightfully divested of his right to a pension under the scheme provided by the 1989 Ordinance as he did not satisfy the requirement of necessary permanent care.
19.  The applicant appealed against the first-instance judgment.
20.  On 22 July 2004 the Rzeszów Court of Appeal (Sąd Apelacyjny) dismissed the appeal.
21.  On 24 January 2005 the Supreme Court refused to entertain a cassation appeal lodged by the applicant’s lawyer.
22.  Following the revocation of his right to the early-retirement pension the applicant was not ordered to return his early-retirement benefits paid by the Social Security Board.
23.  As from 1 September 2002 the applicant was unemployed and has been covered by the social insurance scheme for farmers.
24.  The Government submitted that between 6 January 2005 and 11 May 2010 the applicant received sickness benefits in a total amount of PLN 7,183. They stressed that the applicant and his wife own a farm with an area of 1.83 hectares which was an additional source of income for them. Furthermore, a farm with an area of at least 1 hectare entitles the owner to receive support payments for farmers from European Union funds.
25.  In addition, the Government submitted information as regards various types of social benefits available in Poland. However, they did not specify which of those benefits, if any, were available in the applicant’s situation.
26.  The applicant did not provide details about his financial situation after the revocation of his EWK pension. He only submitted that he was unemployed and although he ran a small farm it did not generate much income.
27.  Under the relevant laws currently in force, it appears that the applicant will qualify for a regular retirement pension when he turns sixty‑five in 2018.
28.  Some 130 applications arising from a similar fact pattern have been brought to the Court. The majority of the applicants form the Association of Victims of the SSB (Stowarzyszenie Osób Poszkodowanych przez ZUS) (“the Association”), an organisation monitoring the practices of the Social Security Board in Poland, in particular in the Podkarpacki region.
29.  Out of all applications lodged with the Court, about twenty-four applicants decided not to lodge a cassation appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal given in their case.
30.  One hundred-and-four applicants lodged cassation appeals against the final judgments given in their cases. The Supreme Court entertained and dismissed on the merits fifteen appeals. In eighty-one applications the Supreme Court refused to entertain cassation appeals on the ground that they did not raise any important legal issues or require the Supreme Court to give a new interpretation to legal provisions which raised serious doubts or gave rise to ambiguity in the jurisprudence of the domestic courts. In the remaining eight cases cassation appeals were rejected for failure to comply with various procedural requirements.